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Reviews by Pitchdown

100

You clicked on this game but have no idea what the hype is about

You are me before I picked this game up. Countless websites, forums, awards, and they all praise this game. What is this game about and more importantly, how the hell does it play? FPS? Side-scroller? Are all the screen shots just shots of in-game cutscenes?

All of the screen shots are of the game as it is being played. The entire game is about your own personal decisions in the heat of a moment, and watching the outcome unfold in front of you. You choose one of many options and watch it play out.

How does that sound fun? It's fun because you regret your decisions. The choices you make have immediate and long-term consequences. You hate yourself for letting that one person die. You can't find a good solution for that one problem. You feel incredible for coming to the rescue of that supporting character.

You feel.

The game takes away the mechanics and leaves only the most important thing: your attachment to the characters. Do not pass this game up. Don't dismiss it because there's no multiplayer. Play this game, and you will come away feeling like you just watched an entire season of your favorite show, and no one else knows about it.

98

The pinnacle of hack and slash combat

The combat in this game is the industry-leader at the moment. The timing, fluidity, and just raw artistic nature of the combos have to be played to be believed.

It could have ended there and the game would be worth it, but in addition you actually get a nicely crafted story with voice acting to match. The world they build is very bizarre but they try to hook it into reality in bits and pieces. It can be strange trying to figure out if they're being literal or figurative in parts, but not anywhere enough to detract from the experience.

I simply haven't played a better game in this genre.

65

The timing of the combat will leave you disappointed

I wanted to play Darksiders 2, and thought by playing this game first I'd get caught up in the story. This game is not terrible, but it's also not worth the effort to play through to unlock the story. In essence, the combat doesn't have any sort of rhythm.

As an example, let's say your standard combo is four hits. You connect with the first 2 hits on a single enemy. In the middle of the 3rd hit the enemy start to swing and while you may connect with the 4th hit, so has the enemy. The idea is you're supposed to dynamically dodge at a given notice (to add tension to the combat), but what happens instead is you never feel that "umph" from completing a combo. Instead of slashing through enemies, timing hits and wading through combat, you're just incessantly dodging after striking 2 hits. There's no sense of completion. As a result, the character you are controlling feels disempowered.

While you can get this game on the cheap via a random sale, you will regret putting hours into an otherwise forgettable combat system. Skip this game and go directly to Darksiders 2.